clio

Which direction is the zeitgeist blowing? From my perspective, it seems that there is a real and ongoing erosion of local communities (labor, religious, or otherwise) that are replaced, often times, by a shallow virtual existence. It does not have to be a religion in the conventional sense, just something that attempts to give meaning to the meaningless.

The atheist generation will have grown up and begin to look for someone to tell them everything will be okay. It's a good opportunity to start a new religion.

Also, some form of artificial companionship.

If we count trees as people, there is no difference

Logistics

Additional anecdata: At my place of employment, after the required code review, we must write an essay about the change and have at least two coworkers approve it. Then we must email the essay to a mailing list of several hundred people. One of those people is the designated external reviewer, who must sign off. However, lately, this final reviewer has been requesting 10+ modifications to the deployment essay due to a managerial decision to "improve deployments". Moreover, deployments are not allowed 1/4th of the year unless a vice president has signed off.

Any code change requires this process.

Both

Probably when stock vests for college hires.